Montessori, Pre-Math and Math

Pre-Math

Math

Montessori review

It is important to remember that the child’s actions are not due to random choice, but directed by his inner needs for development.

…it is like a light that shines on some objects but not on others, making of them his whole world.

Not sermons but creative instincts are important, because they are realities.

Preparation for human society is based on the activities of children who act, urged on by the needs of their nature, in a limited world corresponding to the frame.

The child might say, “I am not perfect, I am not omnipotent, but this much I can do and I know it.  I also know that I can make mistakes and correct myself, thus finding my way.”

The great task of education must be to secure and to preserve a normality which, of its own nature, gravitates toward the center of perfection.

The greatest step forward in human evolution was made when society began to help the weak and the poor, instead of oppressing and despising them.

The small child walks to develop his powers, he is building up his being. He goes slowly. He has neither rhythmic step nor goal. But things around him allure him and urge him forward. If the adult would be of help, he must renounce his own rhythm and his own aim.

The teacher’s happy task is to show them [children] the paths to perfection, furnishing the means and removing the obstacles, begging with those which she herself is likely to present.

…the will is a force which impels activities beneficial to life.

Language

Alphabetizing

Sequence Cards

Ph. Matching Cards

Metal Inserts

Using objects for language

Scanning Dictation

Non-ph. Object Game

Sentences and stories

Letter of Week Tray

Art Appreciation (Week 2)

Structure Within

Slow reading and discussion of Krishnamurti's "On Nature and the Environment."

-How to look without a center? A self-abandonment
-How do we see, without labels, without preconception?
-From where do we engage?
-How do we participate in constructing and reconstructing our world?


Jon Kabat Zinn's sitting meditation- assignment practice for one week.

Write a page of your illuminated manuscript. Focus on handwriting, slowing down with the curve of each letter. What is the life philosophy you follow? The Bible was quoted along with Shakespeare and Krishnamurti.

Introduction to Zentangle, following something moment to moment, constructing space, a looseness, presence, and exploring absorption.

 

-works from Documenta 13

How does philosophy, People's History, and everything we have discussed tie into Art Appreciation?

Slide Presentation- The Masters, Michaelangelo, DaVinci, Rembrandt, Manet, Monet, etc.

-Discussed looking. (On looking and listening: "One of the hardest things to do,'- Krishnamurti)

Looked at Manet's Peony

Next day drew and painted from observation: Easter Lilly

Jonas took a pencil and created his first cave drawing. The sheer joy of his stroke prevented me from interrupting. After each mark he burst into delight. (The next day he was introduced to eraser.) we discussed natural mark-making and how to observe/learn from our children. 

Want wall no-wall

What is it that I truly want?

I've been thinking a lot about that this month - so my absence from our conversation was not really an absence, but more of my trying to make sense of what I want, how to prioritize my time, setting an intention, and acknowledging and accepting my hopes and dreams for each present moment. Even with all that, "you don't always get you want, but you get what you need" plays in my mind. Nice to remember...

I am feeling my mortality more and more each day.
The older Alessandro gets, the more I realize that I'm halfway over in this world.
It's an incredible feeling, and also a sharp reminder that I don't want to waste any more time doing things that are inconsequential and petty. So I haven't been. Setting my own ground and working quite diligently but very differently than how I've worked in the past has been pleasantly surprising. Everything is work: planting a tree, sheet mulching the garden, taking care of the plants that made it through the winter, playing with and teaching my kid, understanding the third thing that happens when two images are brought together, relating to Turu more gently...it's all part of it.

We have worked on our building project in Brooklyn for the last few weeks; a lot of attention has been paid to that. It feels good to sweep away the cobwebs, repaint the hallways, organize the areas that don't get used very often. I planted 14 bamboo plants on the roof, in custom planters that our friend made for the space. Of course it's to make the roof look better (to buy), but even if we hold on to the building, I've wanted to plant those plants for the last seven years - for myself! Even though I realize how artificial a "green roof" actually is, I did want to create some sort of living area in the middle of a sea of concrete and silver painted rooftops. It does make a difference, I tell myself.

There has been an incredible lightness to how I relate to my partner and child.
What I truly want is balance.
I want my work to make a difference, for my life to make a difference. For my actions to mean something. I'd like not be an anonymous artist forever. Whatever that means.

wikipedia?

Dear Angela Rose Voulgarelis,

I'm the webmaster of wikigallery.org, the largest "Open Community" Fine Art Wiki Project in the world. We receive millions of visitors monthly. Our database of Fine Art images and articles is in the millions and we continue to grow daily.  We are a nonprofit organization. This is your opportunity to take part in our project.

I visited your website earlier today and wanted to congratulate you on a creating a well presented and informative site. I would like to add a link to your website from wikigallery.org and wanted to know if you would be kind enough to link back to us.

Adding a link from wikigallery.org to your website will greatly increase your Search Engine Ranking in Google, Yahoo, Bing and other websites. A link from our site to your site will mean that your site will ranked HIGHER on these search engine results pages which will translate to more visitors and better exposure.

If you are interested let us know, and I will get back to you with the exact link information that we would like you to use. Please also let me know what description you would like us to use when we link back to you.

Looking forward to hear from you,

Victoria
wikigallery.org
Webmaster

Art Appreciation (Week 1)

Laying the ground

medium: charcoal and eraser
pencil and eraser

slow

Reading excerpts from People's History like:

"Thus husbands and wives were together only once every eight or ten months and when they men they were so exhausted and depressed on both sides...they ceased to procreate. As for the newly born, they died early because their mothers, overworked and famished, had no milk to nurse them, and for this reason, while I was in Cuba, 7000 children died in three months. Some mothers even drowned their babies from sheer desperation...In this way, husbands died in the mines, wives died at work, and children died from lack of mil...and in short time this land which was so great, so powerful and fertile... was depopulated...My eyes have seen these acts so foreign to human nature, and now I tremble as I write..."

Written by Las Casas from his Histories of the Indies. Comment reflects his first observation account of Columbus settling in Hispaniola in 1508.

1800 painting by Albert Bierstadt, loved, praised and sold for twenty five thousand, The Rocky Mountains, Lander's Peak, in actuality, the Matterhorn of the Alps.

What is the baggage we carry? What is the history of the land we stand on? What is our own history, personal, political, economic? What are we carrying with us today? What are the daily habits informed by? Who picks up our mess? 

Discuss cultural constructs

View "Anything is Possible" by William

Discuss Truth and Reconciliation Commission

Quote the Constitution: "

hen in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."

Memphis Sanitation Strike

http://www.hankwillisthomas.com/WORKS/Mixed-Media/1/

Watched Kara Walker's A Subtlety

Exercises:

-The HAND, drawing gesture, contour, and shading

-Shading steps 1-10

-Portrait through touch

-The other- Portrait through looking at light- Rub Out

founding mother

George evolved naturally into her.

on the brink II

questioning again:  What do I want?

I still want to change the world.

in my everyday:
Set up, continue and maintain an environment that meets the developmental needs of the family.
(Gift of Time would be a good space to work on and document this work.) In order to expand into      the work below.
Create works to encourage development; physical, emotional, intellectual.
Right now there is a toddler and a grandmother in my life, so the works will be developed for them.
I want the time (2 hours a day) to develop and test the work.


overall:
Set up environments that meet the developmental needs of every child, woman, human.
Help transform current educational system. (Starting with infants following through adulthood.)
Start with creating toddler/mother spaces (following Montessori principles)
Women workshops-teaching transformation techniques to parents like meditation, aesthetics, art, and practical tips to rearrange space/make space for themselves and their children.
Nursery schools (3-6)- produce Montessori works (expand to American size measurements) and produce beautiful artworks that children work with.
         

want wall3 from Tereza Swanda on Vimeo.

Was reminded of the Want Wall from 2009 where I asked participants to answer: What it is you truly want? and projected their words onto an 8x8 ft wall.

on the brink

on the brink of something great
(teeter tottering)
beauty and anger can exist in the same space
I sent "Pudica" to LA today
I only slept for 3 hours last night, but am unable to fall asleep tonight, even though I'm completely exhausted. Howling coyotes outside the door (or so it sounded).
I swept my studio today - it's finally warm enough to work in there again. 

Raw

In the Flesh

The texture of the organic bars is vastly different, elastic and wet throughout most of the process. Had to re-sculpt every bar. Loosing George to find George. The photos don't yet translate the elasticity, the flesh-ness and the way the soaps now feel. There is also now the timing of the bars to consider- those left to dry form a literal skin with a raw center.

March 5, b

turquoise

white

light light rose and 

gold.

the ground is still frozen, but ice is melting. 

I'm up to "S" in the Conscious Object piece "Alphabet II"

I almost broke one of my toes yesterday, but it's healing today. Still, it's purple.

matte black/slate

I have been alone in my house since 8:35AM, working.

Below: the thought form for sending benevolent thoughts to an individual.

March 5, a

Back to Back

 On The Ground Floor, Los Angeles (March and April)

Uncertain White, Uncertain Mix, Uncertain Cream and Lavender off to Antioch University

Each set of 8-9 soaps is labeled based on texture, color, scent, or George’s  expression.

thought, pattern

Untitling, Entitling

I take note of the everyday left-overs my children provide: their powerful, subtle, visual signs.